The invention relates to an ink receptor for ink jet printers, and more particularly, to ink receptor containing a combination of a high boiling organic solvent and a non-ionic surfactant as additives to improve black density of the resulting image.
Ink jet printing has become increasingly popular, particularly for so-called xe2x80x9cdesk-top publishingxe2x80x9d, because of its capability to produce small volumes of printed matter from digital input at high throughput speeds. Recent equipment developments have led to the introduction of multi-color ink jet printers that integrate colored graphics and text. To some extent, however, the applications of ink jet printing have been limited due to the demanding requirements the ink receptors must meet in order to provide high quality text and graphics.
One of the factors influencing the image quality of an ink jet image is the capacity to correctly reproduce black areas of the image. The ink-jet printers currently available on the market adopt two different techniques for obtaining black color. A first technique uses an ink based on a black pigment, such as, for example, carbon black, dispersed in a proper solvent. The second one uses the combination of the three primary colors (cyan, magenta and yellow).
The black density of the resulting image on the ink-jet receptor is strongly dependent upon the above technique and the kind of receptor. Up to now, good results have been obtained with the optimization of a receptor to a specific technique.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,866,268 discloses an ink jet receptor comprising an ink receiving layer based on a cellulose derivative which is able to give a good black density on images obtained with a Hewlett Packard DeskJet 660C (using the black pigment technique).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,707,722 discloses an ink jet receptor comprising an ink receiving layer comprising a combination of a cellulose derivative and a fluorinated non-ionic surfactant which is able to give a good black density on images obtained with a Hewlett Packard DeskJet 850 (using the black pigment technique).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,688,603 discloses an ink jet receptor comprising an ink receiving layer comprising a combination of a cellulose derivative, a fluorinated non-ionic surfactant and an alkanolamine metal chelate which is able to give a good black density on images obtained with an Epson Color Stylus (using the color combination technique).
However, it has been experienced that an ink jet receptor optimized for the black pigment technique does not give similar results with the color combination technique and viceversa. Thus, there is a need for improved ink receptors that show good black density when using both the above mentioned techniques.
The ink jet receiving sheet of the invention comprises a support and at least one ink receiving layer, characterized in that said ink receiving layer comprises a high boiling organic solvent and a non-ionic surfactant dispersed in a hydrophilic binder as additives to improve black density of the resulting image.